Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/593

A.D. 1429.] witch, or prophetess, they would fight her in a fair field. It was Sunday; Joan forbade the French to quit the city, but to spend the day in worshipping God, who had given them the victory. Suffolk waited for some hours in vain, when he gave the concerted signal, and all the long line of forts, the creation of such months of labour, burst into flames, and the soldiers, dejected and crestfallen, marched away. Joan forbade any pursuit that day.

Thus the first of the two great things which Joan had promised was accomplished—the siege of Orleans was raised; and the maid, now honoured with the title of the Maid of Orleans, rode forth to meet the king at Blois. As she advanced through the country, the peasantry flocked on all sides to behold her, and crowded forward to touch her feet, her very garments, and, if unable to do that, were happy to touch her horse. By the court she was received with great honour, and the king proposed to entertain her with a magnificent banquet. But Joan told him that it was no time for feasting and dancing; she had much yet to do for France, and but little time to do it in, for her voices told her that she should die within two years. She called on Charles now to advance with her to Rheims, where she must crown him, and leave the English and Burgundians, who were safe in the hand of God.

Charles put himself at the head of his forces, and collected all his power on the banks of the Loire. He proposed, however, first to clear the enemy from their strongholds, and afterwards to march to Rheims. His army, led on by the maid, invested the town of Jargeau, where Suffolk, the commander-in-chief, lay, and within ten days the place was carried by storm, and Suffolk himself taken prisoner. In this triumphant action Joan, as usual, led the way. She was the first to scale the wall of the city; but on her head appearing above it she received a blow which precipitated her into the ditch. She was severely bruised, but not killed; and as she lay on the ground, unable to raise herself, she cried, "Forward, countrymen! fear nothing; the Lord has delivered them into our hands." The soldiers, fired to enthusiasm by her heroism and her confident words, rushed out and took the place. Three hundred of the garrison lay dead. Six thousand of the English had fallen at Orleans, and a panic seized them everywhere. The Lord Talbot, who was now left in command, hastily evacuated the different ports and towns, and retreated towards Paris.

At Patay he was met by a reinforcement of 4,000 men, and made a stand. Sir John Fastolfe, who had brought these troops, advised further retreat, but Talbot refused. While the commanders debated the point, the French were upon them; and Talbot, who saw himself on a flat, open country, endeavoured, but too late, to secure his rear by a village and fenced enclosures. On the other side, the French commanders, dreading an attack of the English in the open field, remembering Aziucourt and Verneuil, advised waiting for additional cavalry, but Joan indignantly exclaimed, "Have you not good spears? Ride on, in the name of the Lord; the English are delivered into my hands—you have only to smite them!" So saying, she led the way in charge, and the men clamoured to follow. La Hire and Saintrailles dashed on with the maid, and broke into the very midst of the English before they had time to form. Never, for many a day, had the French beheld such a sight. The archers, those terrible men, who on all occasions had mowed them down like corn before the scythe, had not time now to fix their stakes. They were driven pell-mell amongst the horse; all was confusion. Sir John Fastolfe, without striking a blow, led off his division; and the brave Talbot, fighting amid heaps of his slain soldiers, was taken, with the Lords Scales and Hungerford, and the bulk of the officers. Twelve hundred of the English lay dead on the field. The French were in ecstasies at their wonderful success, and Bedford, enraged at the conduct of Fastolfe, stripped him of the honour of the garter, and pronounced him disgraced and degraded. But Fastolfe, who had shown on too many occasions his valour, and who was probably influenced by his prudent counsel having been rejected by Suffolk, declared that to have led men so thoroughly bewitched as his were, by their fears of the maid, into action, was just to submit them to infamy and butchery; and Bedford, growing cooler, forgave him.

In this moment of victory Joan again urged on Charles to march to Rheims, and be crowned. At this the contemptible king, who on all occasions of danger kept aloof, shrank back. The distance was great, the whole way was full of strong towns in the hands of the English and Burgundians. All his officers supported him in this view, but the undaunted maid upbraided them with their want of faith, after so many wondrous proofs of the truth of her promises. They had never dared to think of relieving Orleans till she recommended it, but they had now done it; they had feared to fight at Patay, but they had followed her and won the battle; and now they had only to advance, for the powers of Heaven went before them, and unmanned their enemies.

She strove wisely to reconcile Charles to the Constable, the Count of Richemont, whom Tremoille, the king's favourite, hated and feared; but in vain. Not only Richemont with his troops, but many other knights, were refused attendance in the court, and with these diminished forces Charles set forward on the road to Rheims. But everywhere the fortified towns fell before them. Auxerre made a treaty of submission, but Troyes for a time held out. As the soldiers suffered greatly in the siege for want of provisions, they began to lose faith in Joan, and openly to insult her as a foul witch. The murmurs of the base soldiery were quickly seized upon by the Archbishop of Rheims, who had always expressed his disbelief in Joan's inspiration, and the poor maid was summoned before the council, and interrogated like a criminal. But with a simple and undaunted eloquence she made the leaders feel ashamed of their doubts. She challenged them to follow her to the walls, and see them surmounted, and she prevailed. With bags of earth and fagots the soldiers filled up the ditch, and were preparing with scaling-ladders to pour over the walls in a frenzy of enthusiasm, when a parley was demanded by the besieged, and the notorious Friar Richard, who figured so much in the camp from this time, made terms of surrender. As Joan was in the act of passing the city gate at the head of the troops, the friar, still believing that he had to do with an imp of Satan, crossed himself in great agitation with many crosses, and sprinkled holy water on the threshold of the gate. Instead of seeing the maid resolve herself into a hideous demon and vanish away, or find